Grand Canyon - Day 2

We got up early on Thursday morning shook the dust from the crappy hotel off of our feet and headed to catch the South Rim shuttle to the South Kaibab trail.  This is the trail that the mules take to go down to the Grand Canyon floor.  Our goal was to hike down into the canyon to Oooh Aaaah point.  It's a small world...one gentleman on the shuttle was from Yelm WA.

This is the view from the top of the trail:

Looking down over the hill at the trail ahead of us:

The switchbacks were crazy!

This picture I took by hanging off the edge while Timothy had me by the pants.  It's hard to capture the steep depth of the switchbacks...they were impressive:

Us at the bottom of the switchbacks:

Prickly Pear Cactus:

 Oooh Aaah Point is aptly named:

Oooh Aaah Point - The Grand Canyon from Jeanne Hisey on Vimeo.

If anyone speaks French and can tell us what they all were talking about we would love to know!

We sat up on this rock:

And posed for these photos:

And one of the french men you heard talking in the video took this pic:

This is the view of the trail that continues down to the Canyon floor...it would have been cool to do, but you can't go down and out in one day...at least that is what they say...one man who rode the shuttle back with us said they were training to go down the trail we went down all the way to the canyon floor and out another way...they are doing it in April.  If you ride the mules you have to book 24 months in advance, we were told.  And camping along the trail just doesn't sound fun at all!

 We sat on the rock as long as we could...until someone else came along and wanted a turn.  And then we ascended back up the trail huffing and puffing and stopping many times for catch your breath breaks. 

 

They were doing helicopter maneuvers the entire time we were there.  We never did figure out what they were doing, but they were taking something to the canyon floor...kind of expensive whatever it was.

These are the switchbacks on this wall:

As we reached the top we laughed and pumped our fists in the air as we hummed the Rocky theme song.  Now to some this would've seemed like a piece of cake, and no big deal.  To us this was crossing off a Bucket List item.  We hiked into the Grand Canyon!  We had the time of our lives.  The whole way saying..."Do you believe this?"  "Wow!"  "It's like we are living someone else's life!"  We have no delusions.  We know we are middle aged, and as such we realize this is it!  This life we live is all we have.  We need to get to doing the things we want to do in our lives.  On the shuttle bus on the way back to our car I said to Timothy "I feel so alive!"  He said "Is that a euphemism for 'My body hurts everywhere?'"  We laughed and I said "Truly!"  For days we could feel our sore muscles and frankly it felt amazing.  We hiked into the Grand Canyon!  It was something!

On our drive back to Vegas to catch the plane home we stopped by the Hoover Dam.  The last time we were there they were in the early stages of building the Memorial bridge.  It looked like it was going to be impressive.  It truly is.  

Oh, and another interesting thing...the magicians Penn and Teller were in first class on our plane.  I wasn't going to take a picture, but since they were swarmed by others asking for autographs and such I took a picture from many feet away.  

Our trip to Vegas and the Grand Canyon was spectacular.  We had such a wonderful time.  Everything from bathing in a luxurious tub filled with gobs of bubbles, to feeling God's presence in a new way at the Grand Canyon we enjoyed every single moment of it.  We are SO thankful to have won the trip, and we made the most out of it that we could.  

To Timothy:  Every single moment spent with you is a gift.  Thanks for a great few days of adventure and fun, and for 24 years of friendship and love!  I love you Baby!  J.

Grand Canyon - Day 1

We picked up our rental car first thing in the morning on Wednesday and headed off to the Grand Canyon.  One of the things I love the most about our marriage is that we truly just love being together.  We talked about important things, and about nothing.  We rode in silence, and listened to Satellite radio some.  Mostly we were just at ease, riding along enjoying just being together.  The terrain between Vegas and the Grand Canyon is desert.  There is a lot of nothing...tumbleweed, cactus, and a lot of open space with mesas and rugged mountains in the distance.

Our travel agent scheduled us to stay at the Grand Canyon Plaza Resort.  May I say...DON'T EVER GO THERE!  The room was a standard room...it was dark and the very small window looked out onto the pool area.  The major offenses were the fact that the toilet leaned heavily to the right...so you had to practically hold onto something while doing your business because gravity wanted to pull you off.  The other thing and this was major was that the bedding was horrid.  The sheets were literally see through they were so threadbare.  There was a fitted sheet, the flat sheet, and a very thin down comforter that literally didn't go over either edge of the bed.  There was no bedspread...they used another threadbare flat sheet as a bedspread.  Timothy had difficulty figuring out the very odd heater in the room and at 34 degrees outside we were freezing.  Thankfully there was another bed in the room which we robbed of it's bedding to make it through the night.  The continental breakfast was inedible so we opted for drive-through McDonalds as the options were few way out there.  Thankfully we were only there one night...and we weren't there for the hotel...the main attraction...The Grand Canyon:

 I took SO many wonderful pictures...the grandeur of it is beyond, and each part of the canyon is so different and unique!  It's as if you could see God's fingerprints all over it.  I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we do:

We walked miles and miles on the South Rim. 

Some girls from Australia told us that they had seen some sheep down a ways from where we were so we headed over there in search of the sheep.  I went to the edge and Timothy was saying...don't go any further...just as I saw him...we would call it a Ram...but they call it a big horned sheep.  It bolted when he saw me.  Check out the cool Pics:

 Such fun!

 

On our way back to the hotel we saw Roosevelt Elk(the pictures are horrible I had the camera set wrong...but you can get the idea.)

And a gorgeous sunset:

A day for the record books! We sucked the life out of every single moment!